f o t o b i b l i o g r a f i c a

Mike Disfarmer

The posthumous discovery of the portrait work of Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959) has provoked widespread awe, fascination, and bafflement. He worked in complete obscurity in a small community in rural Arkansas, and seems to have had a rather enigmatic personality, no close friends, and no contact with the wider world of photography. Yet he managed to produce an astounding and intimate body of work, in its quality and human depth the equal to that of any other portrait photographer in history.

Disfarmer, Mike.
Text by Julia Scully.
Disfarmer: the Heber Springs Portraits, 1939-1946.
Danbury, NH: Addison House, 1976.

Scully, Julia.
Disfarmer: 1939-1946 Heber Springs Portraits.
Santa Fe: NM: Twin Palms Publishers, 1996.

Tucker, Toba.
Essay by Alan Trachtenberg.
Heber Springs Portraits: Continuity and Change in the World Disfarmer Photographed.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

Disfarmer, Mike.
Texts by Edwynn Houk, Richard B. Woodward, Michael P. Mattis.
Disfarmer: The Vintage Prints.
New York: Edwynn Houk Gallery, Powerhouse Books, 2005.

Disfarmer, Mike.
Edited by Steven Kasher; essay by Alan Trachtenberg.
Original Disfarmer Photographs.
Göttingen: Steidl, in conjunction with Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, 2006.